Last month, I joined a group of other film journalists for a special preview of Zootopia in Los Angeles, and it was while sitting down two-on-one with the filmmakers behind the movie that I learned their thoughts on possibly seeing future stories set within the world of the film. Acknowledging that Walt Disney Animation has recently started to change its perspectives on sequels, I asked if Zootopia 2 was something that they’re thinking about even before the first movie is released. Rich Moore responded in the affirmative, explaining:

"I think it is, because of the worlds being so vast that it just naturally kind of lends itself to wanting to know more about it. It’s like, because it is such a big place, well, what’s going on there? I like that kind of stuff. I like a big cast of characters and a world that lets your imagination kind of… I grew up on Star Wars and it’s like, what’s behind that, or what if I went down there? What was going on over in that part of the Death Star? I think that’s kind of our approach to building these worlds now, or just has a sense of there’s more around the corner".

While Rich Moore and Byron Howard may be thinking about all the potential stories that could be told in a future Zootopia movie, there’s no guarantee that we’ll actually get to see any of them on the big screen. Still, Moore is certainly holding out hope, and told me:

"If people love it, it would be a great thing, and they’re always talking about at the company of creating you know, worlds that people want to revisit. So, that’s what we do."

Q: With such a big world and so many characters, does this story feel self-contained, or are audience going to immediately want to see more, either in future films or even in shorts?

Rich Moore: It doesn’t end totally open-ended, but the world is so well-designed and so big. It’s the stuff of imagination, and you want to know what’s going on over there, or on that side of town. It could easily support more stories.

Byron Howard: And that would be great. As we’re creating a new world, it becomes a big playground for ourselves and for our co-workers. I would love to see it expand, just like I’d love to see Wreck-It Ralph expand. It’s nice to have that option to hear more about that place and these characters.

Byron Howard: Hopefully, there'll be a sequel. I guess, if it does well...

Rich Moore: If everyone goes and sees it...

Clark Spencer: We love making these movies. We fall in love with these characters and we fall in love with these worlds and there's only so much we can do in a 90-minute story so you always secretly hope to get that opportunity to return. This is one of the most clever worlds I've ever seen and there's so much to be explored. So, I think if that opportunity came we'd all jump on.

One of the hardest things in creating an animated film, is you spend five years creating these characters and creating this world, and the film goes out and gets released in the movie theaters, and then you don't get to play with them anymore. It's like these characters and these worlds go away. So, we always secretly hope that the world will fall in love with the film and those characters in a way that we get to revisit it.

I think Zootopia is this amazing city and there's so many more stories to be told. There're even areas that we didn't get to put in this film. We'd always talk about 'wouldn't it be fun to have a nocturnal district for all the animals that are only out at night that's under the ground? Is there an outback island that's filled with animals from the Australia world?' Really, so many things are not in the film because we have 90 to 95 minutes to tell a story and we can only do certain amounts. So, there's so much more to explore should we be so fortunate to be able to get to do that. We would love, love to do that.

Q: If there's a sequel to Zootopia, what would you want to add and make sure would be done in this film?

Kira Lehtomaki: I think I would want to explore some of these other worlds. Byron Howard, he is the director and he's one of the guys that came up with the initial idea for this whole movie, and he had always talked about that 'maybe all the mammals live in this area of Zootopia but maybe there's other areas like for bird or reptiles'. I don't know what kind of storylines he has in mind but I'd love to either explore some of the other areas in Zootopia that we didn't get to see quite as much in this movie or maybe find out where all those other animals live.

It's very hard to fit a world like that into a 90-minute movie. You see the Rainforest District, and Sahara Square, and Tundra Town, and Little Rodentia in the movie but there were districts we couldn't even fit in. There was Outback Island which was an Australian district that we had to cut. We'd always talk about having a nocturnal district under the city, and caves with bats, catacombs, which would be awesome. The world is so enormous. We hope it supports many stories in the future because you could just go a million places. Even the characters themselves are so fun and compelling that you could just tell a thousand stories.

Q: Do you feel like there are more stories that you can tell in this? Are we going to get a chance to see some of these realized, especially since how well Zootopia is doing in early reviews and things like that?

Clark Spencer: We always hope that's where we can go. We never embark on a film thinking 'how can this be something with many stories'. We always focus on the main story 'cause we have to ultimately create the best story possible and hope the world falls in love with the characters and the world. But secretly... It's at this moment in time where we all have to let go of this, right? It's going to go out in the world. The world gets to see it. But these characters and environments we've spent years building and creating, end. And it's always hard. It's really an emotional thing to say goodbye to this cast and say goodbye to our team, because we work with 800 people, and then suddenly we're just three people trying to think of what's that next idea. So, it is always that kind of bittersweet moment. But you do secretly kind of hope you can revisit those characters and the world because we've had so much fun building that and it's been such a wonderful experience for all of us.

Byron Howard: So, the movie Clark and I worked on about seven years ago, Bolt, is a closed-ended story. The dog and the girl are happy on the farm together. It's buttoned up nice and clean and you can walk away. That story exists in that little envelope. This was built with so much potential. There's so much potential of where you could go with the world. Even the things we couldn't include that are so much fun and so compelling that when you mention them to people, people go 'Oh my God, that would be great!' Hopefully... We'll see how it does when it goes out in the world but I would love to come back to this world sometime.

Byron Howard: The world is huge so if the movie does well, and I hope it does, I would love to come back to the world because it is just vast. If we do another movie, I’d stay within the city to show the audience more of what we couldn’t show this time.

Byron Howard: It's a big world and we love the characters. Anytime you get a character that people relate to... It think that would be fun.

Rich Moore: We were touring recently. We were promoting the movie in Europe and in Mexico and around the United States. And sometimes Byron and I would say 'Hey, what about if there's another story and we did this, this, this?' We were just throwing around ideas. When characters, and a world, and potential story material is that fertile, I think it's just screaming for [a sequel].

I'll believe it if they ever actually prove that they're "changing their perspectives on sequels" and release Frozen 2 or Wreck-it Ralph 2 or Big Hero...um...7. Plus, the film has to actually do well first.

So, we'll probably see this by the mid-2020s, at least. Actually, never mind, probably later, because I'm sure that the inevitable Moana sequel will come first.

It's the main reason they went into 3D--so that every film they make could birth a franchise. I mean, the basic concepts of WIR and BH6 scream for sequels, and the same here. The main characters could go on another investigation in each follow-up.

Well, they've been saying sequel this, sequel that, for basically all of their films in the last few years, but the only one that's actually gone ahead so far is Frozen. (Of course, Tangled and BH6 have received TV shows, but that's obviously a different matter.)

That said, considering how big Zootopia has turned out to be, this is probably the most likely candidate to be sequelized next. Honestly, I'm not too against a sequel for this though. It was a solid film with great potential for expanding the world that they built.

so you may have noticed by my absence in the Zootopia thread (or not, lol) I have not seen this film yet. The subject matter doesnt interest me enough to see it in a theater, though I'll definitely check it out on Netflix rental.

so this movie has been performing amazingly well at the box office, almost Frozen levels. Is it really that good? it seems like such a generic talking animal film to me from the trailers. Even more odd, my sis took her daughter to see it and they said they didn't like it. My sis told me she found it too dark, which I thought was surprising. Of course they prefer fairytale stiff like Tangled and Frozen but still. Is it really dark?

I find that people are confusing "dark" with "mature". It's a movie that handles its messages with nuance rather than taking a simple black-and-white approach. In my opinion, it handles its messages even better than many films made for adults that deal with the same issues. Characters do not slow down their conversations for the sake of the audience's understanding, and the conflict is not simple. Even adults will probably miss some of the story details during a first watch. Plus, there are jump-scares, intense action scenes, and a lot of jokes and allusions to real life issues that will probably go over children's heads (even though my theatre was probably 50-75% children, most of the laughter sounded like adult laughter). Even so, yes, I think it's really good, and it's my favorite Disney Animation film since Lilo and Stitch. Just because adults may get more out of it than children doesn't mean that the film's worth should be diminished. After all, animation isn't just for kids.

Honestly, I'd liken its tone to one of Brad Bird's animated films (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille). All three seem to be enjoyed more by adults than children and have nuanced messages and allusions to real world issues that will probably speak more to adults than children.

oh thats interesting, well I love my sister dearly, but she's one of those who thinks children's film/tv should only be entertaining and light. It can have a couple dark/serious moments, like the ones in Frozen, but it shouldn't dwell on it too long, or at least be buffered by "comedy/fun".

A sequel for Zootopia would seem highly likely, yet another story with bunny police officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox con-artist Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) hasn't been officially greenlit by the studio.

"But it makes it so much easier to proceed forward when there's this kind of affection for the film," says Howard. "We want to talk about what these characters would do next. (A sequel) feels like a great possibility."

Q: Rumors have been swirling about a Zootopia sequel, what’s the likelihood of this?

Rich Moore: It would be so much fun. It’s definitely a world that is ripe to tell other stories in. It’s not like one of those movies, where you feel like you’ve buttoned it up and there’s really no more to be said. In this world, there’s so much that didn’t make it into the movie, that it would be great to just kind of explore the world some more. I would love to.

Jason Bateman: I haven’t. I’ve seen a couple of things online about people talking about it and chatting about putting it together, but I don’t know how real it is. I certainly haven’t been approached in any official way. I don’t think the financial performance of it, or even the critical performance of it, would make that a fait accompli since they’re so good at what they do over there. It’s no accident that the majority of their films are really well received, critically and commercially. We’ll see. I certainly would love to have another wack at doing some voice work ‘cause I don’t know what the hell I’m doing there.

I could imagine 'Zootopia" be turned into a TV-series. After all, the original movie ends with the fox (sorry, forgot his name) joining the police along with Judy Hopps. It could turn into an original police-series about an odd couple of cops operating in a unique and varying environment. A bit like "In the heat of the night" or "NYPD".But maybe it would turn out to dark for small kids.

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